CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Well as far as the Suzanne Collin's 'Mockingjay' novel is concerned I can't speak for the Radio5 reviewers opinions but I'm half way through it now and I reckon it's easily as good as the earlier instalments - different because the story has moved on from the arena and into the wider insurrection as the Districts (led my the supposedly destroyed District 13) rebel against the Capitol - but just as gripping in its own way. I understand the producers have decided to milk some more cash out the audience by splitting the Mockingjay book into two more films, and that could indeed prove problematic. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose. You really should read the books too - I'm sure you'd enjoy them.

As something of a 'Hunger Games' obsessive - both the films and the books - there's no doubt whatsoever that I'll be lining up with the teenagers to see this come next November - indeed I can hardly wait:

Speculation that MP might not be our manager next season is based on rather more than mere fans perceptions of his body language. It is a matter of fact afterall that he was Cortese's appointment and very much Cortese's man. It is also undeniably true that he has notably declined to commit himself to this club beyond the end of his current contract, or even imply that he'd be happy to stay longer. The nature of his relationships with KL and our next CEO (whoever that is) and whether he would really be prepared to operate within what may well be a much reduced budget next season are also matters very much open to reasonable question. Having said in the absence of much clear evidence his potential departure remains very much within the realm of speculation at this time. Speculation then, but not quite groundless speculation methinks.

Some TV I've been watching this week: Salamander - Okay so what if it is only BBC4's eurotrash stand in for my beloved 'The Bridge' this is still a pretty decent series. It turns out that apparently staid and respectable Belgium is actually a hotpot of corruption, but never mind because the intrepid Inspector Geraldi is on the case and he will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it. Unfortunately both he, and his family, will have a heavy price to pay for his obsessive nature. The Mentalist - With the dreaded Red John finally dealt with this long running series has undergone a major 'reboot' with several main characters now seemingly gone and Jane (as brilliant and infuriating as ever) working for the FBI - but only under his own terms of course. Too mainstream for the cool kids on here to watch, but I like it. Longmire - About as far from Patrick Jane v the FBI as you could possibly get, nevertheless like some kind of Wyoming version of the mounties Walt Longmire normally gets his man too. His buxom young deputy - and her unsuitably tight shirts - provide yet another good reason to watch this series I must admit.

I more concerned with how the cat is planning to extract it's terrible revenge ... nature hath no fury like a booted pussy cat.

I did actually kick the cat yesterday - mind you it had it coming. What terrible punishment do I deserve for this heinous crime?

I see tonight the Russia government is officially distancing itself from reports that a ultimatum to disarm, or face battle, had been issued to Ukrainian forces based in the Crimea. That's a good thing as far as it goes needless to say, but in this type of incredibly tense situation things can suddenly happen on the ground that are quite beyond the control of any politician or senior officer ... one unstable teenage conscript with a AK-74 in his hand could initiate a crisis that could rapidly spiral completely out of control with dire consequences across the region and elsewhere. I see the Rouble has come under intense pressure today and the Russian Central Bank has be forced to intervene in the international money markets. I'm tempted to draw a comparison here with how the USA's huge economic might forced Britain and France to withdraw from their badly misconceived 'Suez' Operation back in the 1950's. That obvious comparison however may not be valid in this much more complex situation. These are dangerous times folks.

When Shaw suffered a slight knock yesterday Clyne was immediately told to warm up just in case he was needed. I wonder if Luke Shaw leaves in the summer - and I don't know if he will - then we may just be planning to make Clyne at LB and Chambers at RB a permanent arrangement perhaps.

Yep it's a pretty grim prospect but something like that. It would nice just this once to beat Man Utd on the last day though. That would certainly end the season on a high.

It's not really acceptable I suppose but you can kind of understand why players 'lose it' sometimes during a game - they're competitive young men afterall pumped up on adrenaline and the need to physically compete with their rivals. With ever increasing age and responsibility respectable society expects men Alan Pardew's (and my) age to be capable of exercising a greater degree of restraint and self control. This is of course a ridiculous myth put about by women. In reality gray hair and wrinkles often come along with increased levels of stress, irrational behaviour and impulsiveness. Indeed, from much personal experience I can confirm to you all that there is no fool quite like a old one.

Its funny how two fans can watch the same game and yet draw entirely different conclusions from it. My two cents is that Jack Cork was right up there with Lallana as our MOTM yesterday. Indeed at times during the first half I was starting to wonder if 'Woy' might be thinking that he should have included another Saints player in his next squad.

If Russia does indeed decide to annex the Crimea, as looks distinctly possible this morning, then they will surely not face any real military opposition from the west in that eventuality. Russia is still a nuclear superpower afterall, therefore the prospect of the US 7th Fleet deploying into the Black Sea anytime soon is completely out of the question I would hope. I would also hope that recovering the Crimea (a traditional Russian not Ukrainian enclave) is the limit of Putin's territorial ambitions. A free and open referendum by all the people of the Crimea on whether they desire to be a part of Russia or the Ukraine may provide a acceptable way out of this mess if that could be agreed. However if Russia invades then the US will insure that Putin pays a heavy price all right, but the usual diplomatic protests aside, the EU is distinctly limited in the meaningful options it has available because of this continent's dependence upon Russian natural gas supplies. This is a unavoidable consequence of pursuing a energy supply policy that places your security in the hands of potentially hostile foreign leaders, leaders who may not share our libertarian world view or set of humanitarian values. Developing viable alternatives to the traditional fossil fuel technologies that our economies still largely depend upon is not just a environmental priority - it's a national security interest too.

Well plenty of you lot think dropping Steve Davis and playing Gaston Rameirz in his place is the answer to our problems, and he was given 45 minutes yesterday to prove if that theory has any real merit. It seems to me that GR tried his utmost to impose himself upon the game, and he had a few nice touches too, but he also gave the ball away too often as well. A microcosm of his entire time here you might say. Overall I feel on this evidence even his most ardent fan would struggle to argue he improved us during the second half - indeed we lost control of the midfield again did we not?

He's been a fantastic servant to this club, for what its worth I still think he will have a part to play next season, but SRL's obvious decline may be a more fundamental problem than merely another run of poor form I'm afraid. So its two strikers required in the summer then, one to replace Osveldo and another to lift the load off Lambert. Whether we are still shopping for players at Waitrose next summer, or are reduced to checking out the shelves at Aldi is a question I doubt anyone on here can answer. Given our patchy record with 'big money' signings, less may well equate to more perhaps.

The Brits Who Built the Modern World (BBC4 Monday) Can you think of one undeniably outstanding contribution that Britain still makes to the world? This is a much harder question to answer today than it was in even the recent past, but perhaps in the field of modern architecture we are still genuine world leaders. This excellent 3 part series has examined the work of a elite group of British architects (led by Sir Norman Foster and Richard Rogers) who through developing a style genericly known as 'High Tech' have indeed made the world a better place than it was before. I grew up in the post war era when the word 'architect' became a term of derision almost as the nation hurriedly reconstructed itself in a 'brutal' concrete form (inspired by Le Corbusier's 'Modernist' style) that some still admire but millions of ordinary people soon came to despise. But starting with revolutionary landmark structures, such as the Lloyd's of London building and the famous Pompidou Centre in Paris (structures that made a feature of their internal workings) a new generation of elite British designers showed the world how via the power of good architecture our cities could be transformed into much better places both to live and work in. I must say however that thinking of the poor/mediocre structures I personally still experience everyday there is still a hell of a long way to go before anyone can say the world has been truly transformed.

They are doing their job plain and simple. The alternative would seem to be that accused people - who in our system are deemed innocent until proven guilty of course - are put on trial and left to their own devices. You can rest assured that another of your "scum" barristers will be doing his level best to make sure they are convicted.

Dumb. I get the feeling summary execution may be more your style, but under the English common law everyone accused of a crime in this country is entitled to legal representation. The barristers doing that job are acting under the instructions of their client of course. This is the cornerstone of the finest legal system in the world.

Silk (BBC1 Monday) Last night saw a welcome return for the beeb's classy legal drama and it wasted no time at all getting back into the action as the teenage son of one of Shoe Lane's leading barristers was arrested and charged with the manslaughter of a policeman during one of those 'kettleing' operations. Crusading silk Martha Costello (Maxine Peake) soon found herself butting heads with the Metropolitan Police yet again and attempting to walk a fine line between doing the right thing for her (guilty but vulnerable) client, and doing the right thing. Away from the courtroom drama, alpha male chief clerk Billy (the superb Neil Stuke) now has a hostile new office manager to deal with as well as having to cope with his terminal cancer - which remains for the time being very much his secret. I see fireworks ahead. If I were to venture one small criticism of a series that I much admire it is that there was a hell of a lot of plot here to cover in a single hour long episode. The law moves at its own pace and perhaps this series would be even better if it did too.

The problem for those seeking to explain away this story as a typical piece of press manipulation is that this old trick is so easy to sidestep ("but I'm perfectly happy with the job I have Mr Jurno") a child could do it. I've seen so many managers come and go I don't bother getting attached to any of them anymore.

Why do you think then that even when he has been fully fit to play the manager has still decided to use GR so sparingly? I'm not one of those who always assumes managers decisions are invariably the correct ones, but in this instance I suspect MP was probably right.

Most successful teams need to find a balance between offence and defence - it seems highly arguable to me whether a team that included Gaston every week would really deliver a better balance overall that the one we have found this season already. Indeed I suspect that our midfield would be regularly overrun - just as it was when GR played in the Chelsea home game earlier this season.

As a democrat I naturally want to see despots ousted and the will of the people prevail. As a historian and strategist I think we in the west should be extremely careful how far we are seen to be encroaching onto what Russia still sees (rightly or wrongly) as its particular sphere of influence. The old Soviet Union is long gone of course, the entire geopolitical situation is changed out of all recognition since 1989. However make no mistake, maintaining good relations with a state quite as powerful as Russia still is remains an overridingly important foreign policy objective. I pray that a repeat of the dire situations that Hungary faced in 1956, and poor Czechoslovakia did a decade later will not recur in this day and age. But in the (unlikely I hope) event of Russian tanks starting to roll again over the Dnieper then it is imperative that we emulate the wisdom of our forefathers and stay well out of it. The grave dangers of the EU - and the NATO membership that follows - expanding it borders to far to the east and reawakening a old Russian sense of paranoia about their national security are so obvious we should be able to avoid this situation.

To their credit Saints fans love a player who's good on the ball, and GR is that all right. However it seems to me that we do seem to concede much more frequently whenever he is on the pitch and that's probably not a coincidence methinks. Before anyone asks, I don't have reams of statistics on hand to prove that point! As for who in our midfield might be omitted make room for him, it seems to me that the holy trinity of Schneiderlin, Cork and Lallana are virtually undroppable at the moment and Steve Davis is also very far from the mere 'journeyman pro' some on here now seem to consider him. Indeed, the record shows Davis has actually contributed far more significantly to the cause this season than Gaston has ... or ever will in all probability. If GR is to become more than the fringe player he now is then I for one want to see a lot more from him frankly.

I'm not at all sure the (now banned) member in question is a 'WUM' as you put it, and in any case the proper response to those who annoy you is surely to ignore their contributions rather than seeking to ban them. As I know from (much) personal experience this is easier said than done sometimes. As for 'cleaning up' and 'reclaiming' the forum in the name of a supposed majority ... well that kind of language raises all kinds of associations in the back of this amateur historians mind that I don't much like frankly.

You feel calling someone a skate was your finest moment on here do you Wes?